New Data, Old Claims About Volcanoes

Richard Muller and the good folks over at the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project have released their temperature analysis back to 1750, and are making their usual unsupportable claims. I don’t mean his risible statements that the temperature changes are due to CO2 because the curves look alike—that joke has been widely discussed and discounted, even by anthropogenic global warming (AGW) supporters. Heck, even Michael Mann jumped on him for that one, saying

It seems, in the end–quite sadly–that this is all really about Richard Muller’s self-aggrandizement :(

And if anyone should know about “self-aggrandizement”, it’s Michael Mann … but I’m not talking about Muller’s claim that humans caused the warming. No, I mean the following statement:

The historic temperature pattern we observe has abrupt dips that match the emissions of known explosive volcanic eruptions; the particulates from such events reflect sunlight and cool the Earth’s surface for a few years.

In support of this statement, Richard Muller offers up the following chart:

Well, first it appears he has included and excluded volcanoes depending on whether they show up in his temperature record. If we look at big eruptions, eruptions with a “volcanic explosively index” (VEI) of 6 or above, since 1750 we have the following volcanoes:

So Muller has left off Santa Maria and Novarupta, and included El Chichon and Cosiguina. But that’s not the real problem. The real problem is that many of these occurred after or during the temperature drop that they are supposed to have caused … here’s the BEST data including all relevant volcanoes, without the style of overlay that they have used that obscures the actual timing:

Figure 2. BEST temperature data and dates of volcanoes. Red line is a four-year centered Gaussian average of the temperature data. Photo shows Mt. Redoubt in Alaska.

So let’s look at the volcanoes, one by one:

LAKI, 1783: Occurred near the end of the fall in temperature that it is supposed to have caused.

TAMBORA, 1815: Occurred at the end of the fall in temperature that it is supposed to have caused.

COSIGUINA, 1835: Occurred near the middle of the fall in temperature that it is supposed to have caused.

KRAKATOA, 1883: Occurred at the end of the fall in temperature that it is supposed to have caused.

SANTA MARIA, 1902: Occurred in the middle of the fall in temperature that it is supposed to have caused.

NOVARUPTA, 1912: I can see why Muller omitted this eruption, which occurred just before a rise in temperature …

EL CHICHON, 1982: Occurred during the fall in temperature that it is supposed to have caused.

PINATUBO, 1991: This is arguably the only one of the eight volcanoes that could legitimately be claimed to cause a detectable fall in temperature … a whopping fall of 0.15°C or so.

So while volcanoes certainly may cause a minor drop in global temperature, the claim of Richard Muller and the BEST folks that there are “abrupt dips that match the emissions of known explosive volcanic eruptions” is simply not true. There are abrupt dips, but they don’t match up with the volcanic eruptions.

I continually seem to suffer cognitive dissonance with this sort of thing. Willis presents figures with which it is hard to argue *and* they’re easy to find. A group of reputable scientists have access to the same figures and draw an opposite conclusion. One bit of me wants to believe the scientists, but the other just looks at the graph. Is it any wonder I’m sceptical and my head hurts?

But CO2 always rises after the temperature rises it causes (but only 400 years after), so it stands to reason that volcanic eruptions do the same: they happen after the temperature drops they cause. (Well, some of the time anyway.)

“Climate Science” is incredibly difficult. No wonder it’s only the geniuses of ‘the team’ and their acolytes who can understand it. We denialist scum don’t have a snowball’s chance. Even Einstein would have struggled to understand the temporal complexities involved…

Ian H, that’s a good point. If we are going to look at the effects of point events then any form of spreading on the data needs to be avoided. Also is there anything odd about Novarupta that might explain why it seems to have a positive effect (though it could all be coincidence).

It’s very interesting that in this paper they pointed out the effect of Pinatubo (1991, typo in post).

Previously, they forgot about Pinatubo when it suited their argument: Look at the FAQ on the BEST page, under “Has Global Warming Stopped?” and you’ll read “However, if you did that same exercise back in 1995, and drew a horizontal line through the data for 1980 to 1995, you might have falsely concluded that global warming had stopped back then.” No mention of Pinatubo. This was misleading of course because that pause was related to the eruptions, whereas the present one isn’t.

I’ve been trying to find Galeras (1993) in the lists, but nobody takes it into account, in spite of the victims. It occurred in january, (summer season in the souther hemisphere ), two years after Pinatubo. But in the chart, the temperature goes up. No visible dent.
Why is it so ?

Now this should be a simply one , the date a Volcano goes bang big style is easy to know , the temperatures over a period are easy to know , as the date is there taken on are recorded . So it is straight forward to see if there a link between them .
What we see here is a classic way in which statistics can be used to what is know to appear to be wrong because manipulating the numbers produces ‘accurate ‘ but wrong data . In other words its statistically created lie.

Ian H says:
July 30, 2012 at 3:29 amDon’t forget that a four year centered Gaussian average would start reacting to an abrupt drop two years ahead of time. Even so this doesn’t rescue the claim.

Indeed. The smallest wiggles just before (two years is not much in this image!) and after Laki and Tambora may still be consistent with a cooling by the volcanoes, but not the drop in temperature several years in advance.

George says:
July 30, 2012 at 3:12 amSo what we really might have is a possible relation with falling temps causing large volcanic eruptions…. /sarc

I see that /sarc-tag, but I wouldn’t completely rule out a common cause…

I was looking at the Tambora eruption and not comparing it with the Berkley data – just trying to square it with the “Year Without a Summer” (1816) observations in the northern hemisphere. Does the data show some dramatic warming elsewhere on the globe or was the winter (1815 or 1816) not as cold as normal despite the summer conditions? I merely point it out because the “Year without a Summer” is after the Tambora event.

Rather than ‘weak response’ IMO what you really mean is that for most of these volcanic eruptions there is more or less a non-existant response to the eruption when you fully allow for the year to year variability in the anomaly index.

IMO the correlation between ‘volcanic eruptions and cooling of the planet’ argument is very weak and is used as a ‘sticking plaster’ by warmists like your good self (i.e. that man-made or non man-made ‘dust’ causes cooling) to try and explain away the 1940 to 1970 global cooling period. The reality is that this well established cooling period has nothing to do with ‘particulate emissons’ from the post WW2 global industrial expansion and everyting to do with the approx. 60 year (most likely wholly) natural cyclic climatic variations we experience in the earth’s climate, the cause of which we are only just beginning to identify and understand.

Looking at the BEST curve in the media, it seems as if the only function of the pre-1900 volcano data is to make the curve match look good. The 20th century match to CO2 is just a general rise, in fact my age correlates better with the CO2 than the temp does.

Don’t forget that for temperature drops associated with eruptions several centuries ago, there might have been unrecorded volcanic eruptions just around the time of the recorded ones. So if there is a tendency for eruptions to cluster in time, and not all the eruptions have been recorded, then we might expect to see temperature drops correlated with eruptions, with unrecorded eruptions starting off the temperature drop and the few recorded eruptions occurring somewhere in the middle (or even toward the end) of the drop. Only in recent times, when all the big eruptions are known, would we see a relatively pure Pinatubo effect with the known eruption preceeding a subsequent temperature drop.

So to test this hypothesis, is there a tendency over the last, say, five decades — when we can assume very good record keeping — for volcanic eruptions to cluster in time?

We have seen this before. The pro-AGWpeople like to point to volcanoes causing temp drops but when you get into the data, there is either nothing there or the temps had dropped long before the volcano or long after.

I also looked at Berkeley’s new numbers. There is little match to volcanoes once again.

Temps fall in 1781 and 1782 before Laki; Temps were already low by 1809 well before Tambora; Temps do nothing after Krakatoa in 1883, if anything they go up etc. etc.

It seems some people like the volcano inference, but it seems to me that Willis is correct. Volcanoes just don’t matter much (and we could do nothing about them if they did). Where is Mosh with some thorough defense, and Dr. Curry?

A couple of small notes:
1. The CO2 plus volcano line doesn’t really seem to track temperature very well — especially in the 1930s.
2. The Tambora eruption chanced to occur after several very cold years. e.g. the last frost fair on the frozen Thames in London was held in 1814 — a year prior to the Tambora eruption. Tambora may or may not have extended the cold spell.
3. Looking at satellite measurements http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Satellite_Temperatures.png that cover the time period of the Pinatubo eruption, it appears that El Nino/La Nina effects probably have at least as much influence over temperatures as Pinatubo did. Maybe more.

Just to add, you know, Michael Mann and his ilk deem it appropriate to label climate change skeptics as holocaust deniers and beetle larvae. Only seems fair that we recognize his contributions to climate change science by giving him his own category.

Wasn’t Mt. St. Helens a VEI 5 in 1980? Wouldn’t that help El Chichon show up? And where is Mt. St. Helens here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Mauna_Loa_atmospheric_transmission.png ? I think there are more things to consider here. Also, what justification beyond models is there for tying CO2 to some presumed volcano parameter? Does the paper try to explain?

I seem to remember that Tambora 1815 was preceeded by another large volcanic eruption a few years earlier, but from memory nobody knows where it is. This would make Tambora ok because it was part of a broader temperature decline, partly related to an earlier eruption.

Also, some ‘eruptions’ are part of events that occur over several years or even longer, but may be recorded by history as a single ‘event’, when they aren’t. So for some eruptions, there may be earlier eruptions, from the same volcano or regional area, as the eruptions/episode builds over several years, although this would only be true for a few major eruptive events, not all.

Earlier this year, I did a very crude look at the 12 VEI 5 and 6 eruptions we saw last century. And, I highlighted the temp response, according to HadCrut. As Willis notes, the supposed responses aren’t consistent. If anyone is interested in taking a gander just go here. http://suyts.wordpress.com/2012/02/11/volcanoes/ Some have already stated, ENSO seems to have a greater effect than any volcano.

I have direct experience of measuring daily solar values at the surface over several months before and after El Chichon erupted. I was working at a solar furnace in southern New Mexico and during testing we needed to know what solar values were for each test and also to make sure values during each shot did not vary (due to stray clouds and jet contrails). We set the calibrated (I believe the spec for the instrument was within 1 watt/m^2) Eppley pyrheliometer each morning to point directly at the sun. It would track all day on a equatorial tracking mount so that we obtained normal incident energy values (watts/meter^2) throughout the day every working day that we operated the furnace (I worked there for two years). Early morning and late afternoon values were significantly lower due to the sun angles being low and the significant amount of atmosphere that incoming solar energy needed to pass through. Of course the energy level peaked at solar noon. Typically values of solar incoming energy at the surface in the morning and afternoon were many hundreds of watts/m^2 lower than at solar noon. Typical solar noon values during the year on clear days peaked during the fall days when atmospheric moisture content dropped to very low values here in the NM desert. During the “monsoon” season at this time of the year (July and August) when atmospheric moisture content is high (even on clear days with no clouds) the values were lower. Values varied throughout the year but peak surface values in the fall could reach over 1000 watts/m^2 at noon and be as low as 800 watts/m^2 at noon in July and August. I was able to observe a normal annual cycle before El Chichon. After El Chinchon erupted south of us we did not immediately see the results of the fine ash that was blown into the atmosphere but several weeks later as the cloud circled the globe and moved into the NH, we could see an on average steady decline in the solar values until for several months we noted values that were on average about 100 watts/m^2 lower than “normal”. This persisted for at least 6 months but slowly declined until about a year later there were no noticeable effects from the ash cloud. Apparently volcanoes in equatorial regions produce effects like this where volcanoes at higher latitudes or that are not violent enough do not necessarily create these same patterns. I was able to witness a very dramatic decrease in energy input over this fairly long period of time of at least one of the volcanoes noted above. As to the effect on temperature, it would seem that a decrease in normal incident solar radiation of 100 w/m^2 at the surface could easily have some short term effects. At least I can relate to you what the long term energy values were and I did watch the daily plots carefully enough to see overall daily, seasonal, and annual changes in surface energy levels during a “normal” year and in a “volcanic ash” year. It was interesting to see nature at its most dramatic and variable best. Most of us only noticed the beautiful sunsets caused by the ash cloud.

Thanks, Willis. I started to write a post titled “Do These Graphs Set Climate Science Back 3 or More Decades?” But I had a feeling you’d jump on this too. Your post covers most of what I wanted to present.

re: galeras eruption: the eruption was not strongly eruptive (VEI 2). For example Pinatubo was VEI 6. If I understand the nomenclature correctly that makes pinatubo 10000 times Galeras (in kg/s of erupted material).

In addition, mostly tropical eruptions have large global climate impacts. Therefore Mt. St. Helens doesn’t feature prominently (though VEI5). Of general importance is, at how much and how high sulfur compounds are injected into the stratosphere.

Novarupta and Laki have in common a very high latitude, in contrast with Pinatubo, which at 15N latitude, injected large amounts of ash into the stratospheric circulation of both hemispheres. This extreme northern location is expected to dramatically reduce their ability to cool global climate. I would not be surprised if they warmed the polar Winter by blocking the radiative losses in the long Winter night.

Don’t forget this phrase: “…all else being equal.” To understand the true impact of volcanoes, one must first determine the effects of all the other variables at the time, like ENSO and so on. Only then can we say “All else being equal, this is the impact major volcanic eruptions have on climate.”

It is remarkable how many climate scientists, like Mueller, have forgotten this basic grade school tenant to good science.

Justice4Rinka asks:-
“Why do these people keep lying and keep thinking they can get away with it?”
Because all socialists everywhere and all of those flimflam merchants who are wedded to Common Purpose will always lie to achieve their dastardly ends.

George says:
July 30, 2012 at 3:12 am
So what we really might have is a possible relation with falling temps causing large volcanic eruptions…. /sarc

Espen says:
July 30, 2012 at 4:33 am

As Espen says if there is a relationship there is potentially a common cause. After all the Earth is a rotating blob of molten rock with a thin crust two thirds of which is covered in moving fluids being pulled by gravitational forces and stresses due to inertia from rotation rate Length of Day changes. It may take less than we think to form cracks and leaks in that thin mantle.

The quite separate issues here, vulcanism, cold spells, cycles of the sun, sun spots etc, need to be fully and impartially investigated. Piers Corbyn makes his living based on this stuff and has nearly nought resources. He may be not quite spot on, or fail the scientific rigour, but there is something going on. Time some cash was spent finding out what.

For those wondering about a series of volcanic eruptions before 1815, my files show:
Urezelina, Sao Jorges, Azores 1808. Leif Svalgaard, WUWT comments, included an article by Michael Chenoweth, 2001 Geophysical Research Letters. From the abstract: “The 1809 eruption is dated to March-June 1808 based on sudden cooling in Malaysian temperature data and maximum cooling of marine air temperature in 1809.” Svalgaard adds the 1814 eruption of Mayon.

In a Science Daily release 12/7/09: :”[Professor Jihong] Cole-Dai [South Dakota SU Dept of Chemistry and Biochemistry] said climate records [ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica] show that not only were 1817 — the so called ‘year without a summer’ — and the following years very cold, the entire decade of 1810-1819 is probably the coldest for at least the past 500 years. Another use of the 500 number elsewhere, Tambora was the largest eruption in the last “500 years”.

There is another interesting article by Catchpole and Hanuta, U Manitoba, Climate Change 1989. From sailing ships log-books in the Hudson Strait, 1751-1889: “The number of concurrences between the years with severe ice in Hudson Strait and the years with major eruptions was significant at the 99.5% level. In the western part of Hudson Bay this significance level was 95%. The years with severe ice in eastern Hudson bay did not concur with major eruptions.”

Willis, great catch., Now let the real “peer review” begin.

This morning’s Los Angeles Times front page headline: “Climate change skeptic is now believer. [Sub-head] A Berkeley professor makes a surprise ‘total turnaround’ in a study funded by doubters of global warming.” The study from that marxist center, UCB, in the “fair and balanced” Chicago Tribune of Los Angeles.

As usual, the devil is in the details and Willis is a master at digging out basic data. The bottom line here is that, at most, volcanic eruptions may result in a couple of cooler years, but only temporarily affect weather, not climate. Now Willis has shown even that is questionable.

A remarkable post in which you display ignorance of statistics, climate and volcanoes. Are you not even aware that volcanoes are not the only climate variable? Do you not realise that your centred average line inevitably displays the influence of major volcanic eruptions before they have occurred? Do you not understand that the VEI is not the primary variable which determines influence on climate? That would be the amount of stratospheric aerosol injection, which depends on the nature of the eruption and its latitude, and is only partially correlated with VEI.

And obviously you have no familiarity at all with the literature on attribution of climate change. People far cleverer than you have been studying this in far more sophisticated ways than you can imagine, for quite some time. The influence of volcanoes on climate is very well established.

The error bar/max-min of old records wrt new records has bothered me in that the median value is taken to reflect climatic conditions for all times, so that we can say the “actual” temp average is comparable. But this assumes that the natural VARIATION is constant. If former times had a LARGER variation, comparisons of the median temperature would misrepresent the climate of the time.

Is it possible that a lot, or at least much greater portion than today, of the former max-mins were, in fact, true representations of the world? That “stability” of the climate is much greater now than in the recent past? Is it possible that a more accurate representation of the last few thousand years is to set the temperature variation vis-a-vis max and min values? If so, then warm times and cold times were both greater in the near-past, and today’s “extremes” are, in fact, much less than previously.

If it can be show than climatic variations are at a recent period low, then there is no substance for saying that climatic “weirdness” is a sign of pre-CAGW instability.

It would appear that their is a good case for speculating that their might be a common cause that could produced both large (VEI > 5) volcanic eruptions (mostly located in the tropics) and significant drops in world temperature, as well.

Willis is right in using causality arguments to point out that the eruption themselves are most likely not the cause of the drops in temperature, while conceding that they may have an effect at reducing world temperatures by a small amount in some cases.

However, there is a case that large Plinarian volcanic eruption [VEI > 4] located in the tropics can have an observable effect upon the general circulation patterns in the mid-latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere.

Recently, I published a paper that showed a significant correlation between long-term changes in the lunar tidal forces and the interannual to decadal variability of the peak latitude anomaly of the summer (DJF) subtropical high pressure ridge over Eastern Australia (LSA), between 1860 and 2010.

If you go to this page and look at the main graph you will see that there is actually quite a good match between the number of days the nearest Full/New moon is from perihelion and the peaks in
yearly variability of the peak latitude anomaly of the summer (DJF) subtropical high pressure ridge over Eastern Australia (LSA). In fact, the correspondence between the peaks in the data sets are (generally) so good, that it is possible to identify peaks in LSA that are caused by large Plinarian [> 4] volcanic eruptions to the near north of Australia. (i.e. in the Indonesian Archipelago and New Britain (e.g. Krakatoa in 1883)).

Note: that this data is presented for speculative purposes only and is not being used to claima “rock-solid” connection between these two phenomenon.

Since the ice core data (often cited as proof that CO2 is linked to warming) shows that warming proceeds CO2 increases by hundreds of years, why can’t future volcanic eruptions cause cooling in the past?

“Don’t forget that a four year centered Gaussian average would start reacting to an abrupt drop two years ahead of time. Even so this doesn’t rescue the claim.”

I would have thought more like four years (if sd=4), which does make the claim look better. Only Novaruptna looks to me to be totally out – some of the others seem to be a rather weak response.

Thanks, Nick and Ian. With a four-year filter, you’d start to see effects two years before the drop in temperature. But while a short timespan Gaussian average does react slightly before the drop, the Gaussian nature of the average makes the effect much smaller than you’d expect. Here, for example, is the same data, with a Gaussian filter of half the size (2 years).

As you can see, none of my comments or conclusions are affected by the change.

My own sense is that yes, volcanoes do have an effect. However, it is minimized by both the “nearly equal but opposite” responses of the climate to such a change (such as decreased tropical clouds), and by the noise in the climate system. As a result, the volcanic signal in the data ends up being quite small.

Here’s another way to look at it, this is the average temperature anomaly for the two years prior to the eruption, compared with the temperature anomaly for the two years following the eruption:

As you can see, sometimes it warmed after an eruption, sometimes it cooled, sometimes temperatures were unchanged within the error of the measurements … not a ringing endorsement for Muellers claims, quite the opposite in fact.

I was looking at the Tambora eruption and not comparing it with the Berkley data – just trying to square it with the “Year Without a Summer” (1816) observations in the northern hemisphere. Does the data show some dramatic warming elsewhere on the globe or was the winter (1815 or 1816) not as cold as normal despite the summer conditions? I merely point it out because the “Year without a Summer” is after the Tambora event.

Tried running a correlation with sunspot numbers, known volcanic eruptions and temperature datasets once (Figures from 1780-2000AD). Just to satisfy my own curiosity. I’m no statistician or scientific researcher, merely an interested layman, but I couldn’t see any obvious connection simply using publicly available historic data. At least not globally.

1. Though these may have coincidentally occured during a temperature decline which had already begun for other reasons, this does not mean there was no significant impact to exacerbate that fall.

2. To say as a result that “volcanos certainly may cause a minor drop in global temperature” is probably an over statement :
a. You cannot be sure how much something like Tambora increased a temperature drop already under way.
b. Even Tambora, a relatively major event in the list, was minor compared to some of the historic eruptions of, say, Yellowstone. Better to say ‘THESE volcanos may….’

In a Science Daily release 12/7/09: :”[Professor Jihong] Cole-Dai [South Dakota SU Dept of Chemistry and Biochemistry] said climate records [ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica] show that not only were 1817 — the so called ‘year without a summer’ — and the following years very cold, the entire decade of 1810-1819 is probably the coldest for at least the past 500 years.

I love how climate science these days is reduced to “probably” … it may or may not be the coldest decade in the last 500 years, but if you don’t know, don’t guess and call it science.

In fact, according to BEST, the ten years before the Tambora eruption in 1815 were COLDER than the decade following the eruption, so the BEST data disagrees strongly with Professor Cole-Dai:

Do you not understand that the VEI is not the primary variable which determines influence on climate? That would be the amount of stratospheric aerosol injection, which depends on the nature of the eruption and its latitude, and is only partially correlated with VEI.

Sure, Lamb’s Dust Veil Index (DVI) is a better gauge. I just mentioned the VEI in passing, and I discussed all of the volcanoes that they listed … so what is your issue?

And obviously you have no familiarity at all with the literature on attribution of climate change.

Obviously, you have no clue what I am familiar with …

People far cleverer than you have been studying this in far more sophisticated ways than you can imagine, for quite some time. The influence of volcanoes on climate is very well established.

Oh, please. I’ve made good money and established good science in my life by betting against people “far cleverer” than I am. As Richard Feynmann once commented “Science is the belief in the ignorance of the experts”, and clearly he had your claims to expertise in mind.

The influence of volcanoes on climate is minor and limited, and the current understanding of their effects is not well established or grounded in observations. Read the links listed under “Further Reading” at the end of the head post, there’s a good fellow, and next time don’t enter a thread in such a nasty, unpleasant manner, making a host of accusations without a single citation or scrap of evidence to back up your ranting. That kind of behavior just encourages people to ignore you.

IMAO, the explosion of the uncertain prior to 1850 precludes the possibility of identifying the presence of volcanic eruption signals, and Muller et al. shouldn’t even have attempted to do so. As Willis has shown, attempting to do so has lead to nonsensical conclusions. Major eruptions surely can have short term, small effects on temperatures, but really, these effects are minor compared to the “noise” that may obscure them or, as appears to be the case with many eruptions that occurred when cooling had already started, exaggerate them.

Reblogged this on The Next Grand Minimum and commented:
The issue of vulcanism and cool are of interest to readers of this blog and to me. Cooling and vulcanism seem to go together, but it is not clear what the real connection is. I suspect that a quiet sun can create conditions for eruptions. Not sure the mechanism. As Willis point out most cooling comes before the eruptions.

Volcanoes always seem to be used as the glue or ductape to hold together a broken theory or hockey stick. I believe the common sense and wisdom demonstrated probably 50 years ago will prevail, from the era before agenda-driven Science co-opted the conversation.

People have never doubted effects from volcanoes, global weather-effects up to a few years or even five years. If that short period of time is redefined as climate then volcanoes do have climate effects. However, global weather-effects up to five years is NOT really climate the way I learned it, because that is not long enough to affect the evolution of some species or much of anything else. One could argue that a human generational length weather pattern of 30-ish years can be considered ‘climate’ because it shapes the thinking and expectations of that generation, but anything much shorter than that is silly IMHO. Clearly, one big problem is the absolute butchering of the damn language. The word climate itself is probably the single biggest casualty of the Climate Wars.

Anyway, let’s just try common sense. If you are living in an extended colder period like the Little Ice Age and are subjected to several medium-to-large volcanic eruptions, you are in a far worse situation than if you are in a warmer period like the 1980’s-1990’s (if Tambora happened in the late 1970’s it would have quite a different effect however, and I wonder if the AGW scam would have been born at all). Expecting a uniform signature in the data from the eruptions while living during different ‘climates’ is illogical. And this is not even addressing the location of the blasts in latitude, the dramatic difference in the size and makeup of blasts themselves, the scientific measurement ability during each timeframe, and the effects it has on the common human lifestyle and technology at the time (no planes to crash or satellites to snap pictures during Tambora and Krakatoa).

The Year without a Summer likely couldn’t have happened if it were not an equatorial eruption and in a long cold period where the vulnerability was already maximized or if it was a much smaller blast like all of the eruptions since. On the other hand, our past few summers (not the current one) just might have been eliminated by a well-placed Tambora sized eruption since they were cool and short compared to the 1990’s in the Northeast USA. The important thing and the difference between a rational person and the crazy climate cult is that I would NOT have used such a missing summer to secure funding to study Global Cooling.

It’s probably really simple: a giant-size super-volcano or large asteroid strike will change the so-called ‘climate’ for centuries or more, a medium-to-large eruption will alter it for years or perhaps decades, a small-medium one will affect it for weeks or months, and the small ones barely make the news anymore. Their biggest affect may be on the psyche of the pop-scientist of the given time period, and perhaps should be used as Rorschach tests to flush out the fake scientists from the real ones.

More seriously though, I think the biggest lesson is really that we are seeing the limitations of the data, and of statistics in general because you can only do so much examination of a set of numbers before you need to alter and change them to squeeze out the desired result.

If volcanoes affect temperatures, then it should be obvious in the records. The comments above about the reductions in solar irradiance should not be taken lightly and the impact on the stratosphere/ozone layer are clear enough. There should be a definitive signal but there is not in most cases.

So either:
– the volcanoes impact is less than expected; or,
– the temperature records are not accurate; or,
– the climate responds in a way to offset some of the impacts.

Mt. St. Helens is just 102 miles to the SW of me. When it exploded I lived 250 miles away, farther east. The sky covering cloud – at first we were just on the southern edge of it – is not something one can forget. However, many years ago (9/24/1950) the sky in western Pennsylvania darkened in somewhat the same manner — lasted longer, and I was a lot younger – but caused from fires burning in western Canada. It seem like a big deal at the time.http://the-red-thread.net/dark-day.html
The “yearly” temp-line on the Berkeley chart at the top of this post shows a drop following 1950. Perhaps the particles do not reach the altitude of a large volcanic explosion, and thus have less lasting effects. But if one (that being Dr. R. M.) is going to attribute climate disruption to blotting out the sun, why not pay attention to fires also?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I read Dr. Watson’s comments @ 8:09 and had three thoughts:

A. This person must be Willis’ big brother and is trying to remind him of the time he had the youngster stick his tongue on a freezing flag pole so everyone around could get a good laugh; or
B. The person just emerged from a parallel universe with different chemistry and physics and no knowledge of recent Earth science and the documentation thereof. Or,
C. Dr. Watson is a crank.

Willis E’s response @ 10:42 does not confirm ‘A’ leading me to make the attribution to ‘B’ or ‘C.’ I am just a bit skeptical of parallel universes, however.

I have direct experience of measuring daily solar values at the surface over several months before and after El Chichon erupted. I was working at a solar furnace in southern New Mexico and during testing we needed to know what solar values were for each test and also to make sure values during each shot did not vary (due to stray clouds and jet contrails). We set the calibrated (I believe the spec for the instrument was within 1 watt/m^2) Eppley pyrheliometer each morning to point directly at the sun. It would track all day on a equatorial tracking mount so that we obtained normal incident energy values (watts/meter^2) throughout the day every working day that we operated the furnace (I worked there for two years).

… I was able to observe a normal annual cycle before El Chichon. After El Chinchon erupted south of us we did not immediately see the results of the fine ash that was blown into the atmosphere but several weeks later as the cloud circled the globe and moved into the NH, we could see an on average steady decline in the solar values until for several months we noted values that were on average about 100 watts/m^2 lower than “normal”. This persisted for at least 6 months but slowly declined until about a year later there were no noticeable effects from the ash cloud.

Thanks, Bernie, observations are golden. My point all along has not been that volcanoes don’t reduce the insolation, it’s clear that they do. What I keep trying to get across is that the climate system reacts to changes, following Le Chatelier’s principle, in the opposite direction of the forcing. For example:

Note that, despite the fact that you observed the fine ash several weeks after the eruption, the temperature did not drop below the temperature at the time of the eruption for another five months. And other than one very cold month a year later, after you say that the ash cloud had totally dissipated, there was no anomalous cooling from the eruption.

Willis,
You state,
“PINATUBO, 1991: This is arguably the only one of the eight volcanoes that could legitimately be claimed to cause a detectable fall in temperature … a whopping fall of 0.15°C or so.”

Yet, your temperature anomaly graph shows it warming after Pinatubo. This seems contradictory to me. I don’t claim to be statistically literate. So, can you tell me what I am missing.

Le Chatelier’s principle does not predict a return to the previous equilibrium following a change to the system. It predicts the establishment of a new equilibrium. Moreover, it is a principle that is applicable to thermodynamically closed systems, which climate is not.

Willis
I completely agree with you that the climate system tends to react to dramatic changes in order to restore balance. I just thought that it was quite remarkable that the level of surface irradiance dropped by about 100 w/m^2 over the short period of maximum ash concentration (serveral months) while all that we sensed were very beautiful sunsets. This is especially interesting when there are climate scientists who note CO2 forcings of a few watts/m^2 that are expected to destroy the planet. Thanks for the NM data that showed very little direct effect. It does not surprise me and it confirms our understanding of a robust climate system. My experience of irradiance data with clear humid days much less what surface irradiance does when clouds move in supports your idea of a tropical cloud control (or simply a global cloud control) climate mechanism. Here in NM on late summer days we get tropical island like storms (generally not as dramatic). I spent a year in the Seychelles (Indian Ocean) and watched the “march” of a real monsoonal flow. What an amazing climate (control)mechanism that is. Hundreds of inches of rain each year. Here in the desert 12 or 15 inches is a good year. Thanks for your continuing effort to show us the data and help us interpret it.

Second, you may wonder how much CO2 a volcano emits. How could we measure that without capturing an entire eruption? It turns out Lake Nyos captured essential all of the seepage from the volcanic vents beneath it for years. See figures from Schmid, Halbwachs, & Wuest (2006), of 18 liters/sec of CO2-rich saline water, with 420 mmol/liter of CO2. [I had an online link to Schmid et al, but she’s dead, Jim.] I calculate 187 million SCF of CO2 annually for Lake Nyos alone, or 8.1 gigatons/year of carbon (as C) for all volcanoes, world-wide, assuming the Lake Nyos seep is typical, not counting land-based volcanoes.

Compare that to typical mainstream science figures, Gerlach 2012(?): http://www.livescience.com/14591-carbon-dioxide-emissions-humans-volcanoes.html Gerlach estimates 0.04 to 0.12 GT of C/year [as C], world-wide. Quite a difference, two full orders of magnitude. [8 GT/yr is significant compared to human emissions, currently estimated at 35 GT C/year.] See EOS (14 Jun 2011) for more info on the “official” (non-skeptic) views regarding volcanic emissions. [thanks to CO2Science for the reference].

Note: It is estimated that the Lake Nyos eruption released an accumulated 100 million cubic meters (at STP) of CO2, killing 1748 people over an irregular area roughly 25 miles in diameter. Information on the tragedy: http://www.geology.sdsu.edu/how_volcanoes_work/Nyos.html Similar deaths might occur with the failure of a carbon capture system, should anyone be so foolish as to build one.

Le Chatelier’s principle does not predict a return to the previous equilibrium following a change to the system. It predicts the establishment of a new equilibrium. Moreover, it is a principle that is applicable to thermodynamically closed systems, which climate is not.

Thanks, Fred. All I meant was that as with the Le Chatelier principle, the direction of the response was towards the previous equilibrium (negative feedback). Sorry for the lack of clarity. I would have more accurately described it as following the Constructal Law, but not many folks know about that.

The first plot (Figure 1) shows the average land temperature to be about 9°C.

It was my understanding that the average global temperature is 15°C.

What am I missing?

The tropics, largest land and ocean zone on the planet, at much higher temps than the US?
There may be some locales whose average matches the global figure, but they are few, and not particularly relevant to anywhere else.

As a layman climate skeptic (I have a decent scientific/engineering background, deeply burried in my resume now, which helps me follow what is said in different parts of the climate debate), I am astonished by the clarity, the simplicity and the soundness of your posts when you destroy a “Team” article (I particularly liked the review of Shakun). Keep up the good work, it’s really nice to read. Maybe only Steve McIntyre is capable of deploying more firepower, as far as I can tell.

More to the point, It’s nice to see some real physics reasonning for once and not some spurious claims derived from “only this blablabla could be explained by the model” and other “correlation proves causation” type of stuff I’ve read all over the IPCC reports…
I have been involved with highly complex models in another area in the past and I believe there is a real cultural problem with those now. The computer calculation superpower of the recent decades is being misused on a massive scale. People make assumptions they don’t test and then tweak parameters to make past history fit. More generally, people mix up data (which are scarce by nature) and assumptions. This leads to weak conclusions at best and systemic errors at worse. I’ve been contemplating this problem for a long time and I believe we should do a lot more pedagogy with regards to modelling in general.

Second, you may wonder how much CO2 a volcano emits. How could we measure that without capturing an entire eruption? It turns out Lake Nyos captured essential all of the seepage from the volcanic vents beneath it for years. See figures from Schmid, Halbwachs, & Wuest (2006), of 18 liters/sec of CO2-rich saline water, with 420 mmol/liter of CO2. [I had an online link to Schmid et al, but she’s dead, Jim.] I calculate 187 million SCF of CO2 annually for Lake Nyos alone, or 8.1 gigatons/year of carbon (as C) for all volcanoes, world-wide, assuming the Lake Nyos seep is typical, not counting land-based volcanoes.

Interesting, Jorge. I have replicated your figures for Lake Nyos, which gives about 2,800 tonnes C per year, but you can’t just multiply that by three million. The main issue is that most volcanoes on the planet are NOT emitting CO2, just the active volcanoes. Lake Nyos is a very rare phenomenon in that regard. There are scads of lakes in volcanic craters around the world, and only 3 of them are known to leak CO2.

And not all active volcanoes are emitting CO2, just the ones erupting and for a few years after the eruptions (e-folding times for the drop in CO2 production after an eruption are on the order of 6 years). Numbers are hard to come by, but on land only about one volcano in ten is classified as “active”, and only about 20-50 volcanoes per year are erupting. This is about 1% of total volcanoes.

As a result, rather than multiplying the Lake Nyos number by 3 million, you need to multiply it by about a hundredth of that, because most of those volcanoes are either tiny or dead. That gives you about 0.09 GtC per year … which is in line with the Gerlach estimate.

w.

PS—according to your citation, the researchers are counting as a “volcano” any conical shaped subsea hillock over 100 metres tall … so these are not even “Lake Nyos” size, they are very, very tiny. Just another reason why you can’t simplistically multiply by 3 million … the majority of them are dwarves. The researchers estimated that there are only a total 39,000 subsea volcanoes over a thousand metres tall (3,300 feet), which is still a small volcano by terrestrial standards …

The first plot (Figure 1) shows the average land temperature to be about 9°C.

It was my understanding that the average global temperature is 15°C.

What am I missing?

No clue, it’s Muller’s work, I have no expectation that it will be right.

BTW, Figure 1 is not the same as this Muller plot – I guess they read WUWT. Too bad they didn’t fix their press release!

My goodness, that’s hilarious. They’ve already coopered up the problem of the mis-identification of El Chichon. I love how they did it without any notice, or any thanks to the alert WUWT commenter for finding their problem. Typical lack of integrity for those bozos …

I am pleased, however, to find out that they read WUWT. It reinforces what I have always claimed, that everyone who is serious about climate science reads WUWT, no matter what side of the aisle they are on.

The BEST temperature reconstruction when it comes to volcanic eruptions looks very much like the climate model hindcasts, which over estimate the effect of volcanic eruptions by a factor of 2 to 3.

Now Willis is throwing doubt on the accuracy of of the BEST reconstruction when it comes to effects of volcanic eruptions.

I smell a large rat here. Aerosol forcings are used as a ‘fudge factor’ in the models to maintain high GHG and CO2 forcings and it looks like the temperature record has been fiddled to make it come more into line with the model hindcasts.

Otherwise, I have been looking at the effects of volcanic eruptions on the Central England Temperature record. There is no clear volcanic signature I can see. In the link below the unusually cold winter of 1814/15 precedes the Tambora eruption in April 1815. The summer of 1816 was cool but not outside the range of summers for the period.

There was a series (4 or 5 from memory) of large volcanic eruptions that began in 1812 and preceded Tambora. But the series of cool summers starts in 1809.

There is a fundamental assumption built into your argument. That the temperature response to an eruption is closely tied to the time of the eruption. Now possibly this might be true around the immediate vicinity of the eruption.

But we are (and you argument) are about Global temperature responses. And these depend on different factors. How long does it take for the ejecta from an eruption to spead significantly around the world? Then how long does it persist for? How many months, or years later does the climate resonse to an eruption peak at? Many of the examples you give do show meaningful temperature drop withi a year or so of an eruption. About what one would expect. Even if temperatures had been rising when an eruption occurred, we would expect to see an impact from the eruption 6 months to 2 years after it occurred, depending on the circumstances of the eruption. Roughly what you have observed. The temperature impact happens 1-2 years after the eruption. Since your Gaussian average is of temperature, one would expect to see the maximum inpact 1-2 years after each eruption.

To produce a global temperature impact, a volcanic eruption needs to produce effects across a large part of the atmosphere. So the key question about an eruption isn’t just how big it was. It is also about things like what latitude it occurred at? Whether it was a short and very intense eruption or a somewhat more protracted but lower intensity eruption. Very important here is how high into the atmosphere the ejectate reached. If it only reached the upper Troposphere, then the normal hydrological cycle – rain may wash it out relatively quickly. But if it reaches the stratosphere, it may persist there for years. Because Altitude & Latitude are critical to how much the products of an eruption get distributed around the world. And for any given eruption, how big its climate impact is depends on how far and for how long its products stay up there. So a higher volume but lower energy eruption may not reach the stratosphere.

Look at the satellite data for temperatures after Pinatubo. One could see some impact for several years in the lower atmosphere data but not that strong. In contrast, the lower Stratosphere numbers went through the roof and stayed there for 3-5 years. Conversely the big El Nino of 1998 shows up strongly in the lower atmosphere, but is insignificant in the stratosphere. How much an eruption reaches to the stratosphere has a big impact on whether it has a sustained impact.

Next key issue is atmospheric mixing time. How long does it take for a change at one location to spread around the world? The common figure cited for intra-hemispheric mixing time – how long a change takes to propogate around the world in one hemisphere – is 1-3 months.

In contrast, inter-hemispheric mixing time – how long it takes for effects to cross the equator is more like 1-2 years.

And this is for the lower atmosphere!

Similar times for the stratosphere are again, several months for Intra-Hemispheric but typically 5 years for Inter-Hemispheric transfers.

What then is the relative impact of eruptions close to the equator vs at high latitudes? One can imagine that a high ejecta loading in the atmosphere, added close to the equator, may breach the inter-hemispheric boundary somewhat more quickly. In contrast, an eruption at very high latitudes may well take much longer to transfer to the other hemisphere. And thus diminish but extend the impact of the eruption.

You make particular reference to Novarupta as being a significant eruption that doesn’t ‘fit in’.
Novaruptna is in Alaska!!
What climate boundaries does the ejecta from this have to cross before it significantly impacts on Global climate? How does this contrast with big eruptions near the equator? Pinatubo, El Chichon, Santa Maria, Krakatoa, Tambora?
Where does the Polar Jet Stream travel relative to the Novaruptna eruption? Could that have contained the impacts of Novaruptna to high latitudes?

I dunno Wilis, but I suspect neither do you!

Which seemingly is secondary in a points scoring war between WUWT and BEST to determine who has the greater Anti-AGW street-cred.

Fairly sad really when you think about it. Has our paper been trumped by the other guys paper? Can we shoot some holes in it? Hey, lets mess about with the Volcanoes angle. Rather transparent and in the end rather childish.

If you and Anthony think your arguments have merit, publish the paper and await the response of your peers. Till then, put a sock in it!

Science has nothing whatever to do with dueling Blogs & Press releases at dawn.
Sience is about the contest of ideas, not press releases. Leave that for the media.

Willis Eschenbach says:
“Richard Muller and the good folks over at the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature (BEST) project have released their temperature analysis back to 1750, and are making their usual unsupportable claims.
…
So while volcanoes certainly may cause a minor drop in global temperature, the claim of Richard Muller and the BEST folks that there are “abrupt dips that match the emissions of known explosive volcanic eruptions” is simply not true. There are abrupt dips, but they don’t match up with the volcanic eruptions.”

If one looks for the nature of the ‘dips’, they can be related to a bunch of solar tide functions from mostly all relevant planets in the solar system. The – heliocentric – solar tide functions can be shown as well in the – Earth – global sea level oscillations, but also in the – Earth – global temperature oscillations of the satellite measurements of UAH (Who, sorry, deals in 2012 with calibrated thermometers on land, and not on oceans, to understand the nature of the global climate, and why?)

The mind clamp on the Earth as the ‘center of climate dogmatism’ seems to me like the clamp of the people in Rome 400 years ago on the geocentric world view.

However, people like to have a position, independent of knowledge on the matter.

The solar tide function of Mercury and Earth match up with the Earth sea level oscillations [ http://sealevel.colorado.edu/files/2012_rel3/sl_ns_global.txt ] after removing i.) a linear trend of 0.313 mm per year, which is accepted by some people as an effect of ice melting since the last ice age, and ii.) removing the seasonal effect.

It is one thing to find errors in weak theories, but it is a different thing to find relations to well known structures in the solar system.

the cold episode started in 1809. yes. another large eruption of unknown location is thought to start the cold decade ( e.g. ). many station series in the BEST data show a strong signal in 1815/1816 especially in the US. Lord Byron disagrees with Philip Bradley ( Darkness ,wiki and the poem). The climatic effect of Tambora may have been muted as the climate was already in a rather cold spot. I clearly see the Tambora signature in Bradley’s plot.

They say a little knowledge is dangerous. Willis you have a little knowledge and you are dangerous. The link between large volcanic eruptions, particularly those with large amounts of debris being ejected high up into the atmosphere, and subsequent brief periods of colder climate is well established.

The laughable thing is that Richard Muller seems to claim that Berkley has discovered something important and this is extremely disingenuous and an insult to the many scientists who have gone before and written countless papers about this.

There is a fundamental assumption built into your argument. That the temperature response to an eruption is closely tied to the time of the eruption. Now possibly this might be true around the immediate vicinity of the eruption.

Glenn, you misunderstand my argument. The problem is that the big drops are coming before the volcanoes, and no amount of assumed delay in the volcano’s effects could cause that.

… So while volcanoes certainly may cause a minor drop in global temperature, the claim of Richard Muller and the BEST folks that there are “abrupt dips that match the emissions of known explosive volcanic eruptions” is simply not true. There are abrupt dips, but they don’t match up with the volcanic eruptions.”

If one looks for the nature of the ‘dips’, they can be related to a bunch of solar tide functions from mostly all relevant planets in the solar system.

Yes, and they “can be related” to a host of other things as well … but are they related? Nobody has ever, to my knowledge, shown that abrupt dips in the earth’s temperature are caused by solar tide functions. The problem is that, given the sun, moon, and a host of planets, there are literally hundreds of possible “solar tide functions”. As a result, you can find a cycle that fits just about anything … but that doesn’t mean a damn thing.

… If you and Anthony think your arguments have merit, publish the paper and await the response of your peers. Till then, put a sock in it!

Put a sock in it? Dang, Glenn, you are a nasty little man. I write some things for the journals and some things for the blogs. That won’t change, no matter how unpleasant you might be, so you might as well get used to it. No matter what I write, there’s always some jerkwagon like you who comes along to tell me I’m doing it all wrong. For the last three years, my work here has averaged about a million page views per year … and yours? I have had a peer-reviewed submission published by Nature magazine … and you?

You don’t deserve an explanation, but I’ll give you one anyhow. I write for the blogs because 1) my work is read by many, many more scientists here than it would be in the journals, 2) the peer review here is much more stringent than in the journals, 3) I am interested in swaying public opinion as much as I am in swaying scientific opinion, 4) journals are behind paywalls, cutting out many potential readers, 5) I learn much more from the readers of my blog posts than I do from the readers of my journal articles, 6) education, both of myself and my readership, is one of my objectives, and 7) I am interested in affecting the ongoing scientific discussions, whereas journal papers only appear six months after the discussion has ended.

Now, that’s the new reality of science. You can either get with the 21st century, or you can continue to marginalize yourself and get your vote cancelled by your asinine snarky comments.

It would seem that Muller’s work rules out CO2 as a cause. He is showing temperatures increase in-line with the logarithmic increase in CO2. If CO2 was a primary cause, the temperatures should have been increasing linearly with a logarithmic increase in CO2.

They say a little knowledge is dangerous. Willis you have a little knowledge and you are dangerous. The link between large volcanic eruptions, particularly those with large amounts of debris being ejected high up into the atmosphere, and subsequent brief periods of colder climate is well established.

Thanks, Jeremy. Actually, I have a lot of knowledge and you’re right, I’m dangerous … to folks who think that because something is “well established”, that perforce it must also be true.

Yes, volcanoes have an effect on climate. No, that effect is nowhere near as large as is claimed by the climate modelers and believed by credulous scientists.

See, the problem is that if the so-called “climate sensitivity” is as high as they say (3°C per doubling of CO2), then volcanoes should have a huge effect on the climate, because they make a large change in the forcing. So they believe, without evidence, that volcanoes do have said large effect.

But volcanoes don’t have a large effect on climate, they have a small effect despite having a large forcing … go figure. I say that this is because the climate system is not some rigid thing that slavishly follows changes in the forcing. It is a living system that reacts to changes in the forcing by making opposing changes in the other direction. These mute the claimed effects of the forcing, and result in volcanoes not changing the temperature all that much, despite changing the forcing a lot.

For example, after a volcanic eruption, the temperature begins to drop. When the temperature drops, we get less clouds. When we get less clouds, we get more sunlight striking the earth … which counteracts the cooling effects of the eruption.

Now, this is anathema to the “consensus”. The idea that the climate system reacts to a change in forcing by changing things like albedo is rank heresy to them, and possibly to you as well … but I have established it in a number of ways and in a number of areas of the world.

Assuming local temps follow the global trend this would indicate that Scotland in the 1750s would be about 2 degrees cooler than now. This would give it an annual average of about 5.5 deg C. At these temps crop yields would be so poor that there would be would be mass starvation and there would be winters of exceptional severity. There are no records of any such thing. Of course there is no guarantee that any one area would follow the global average but if they had normal temps then some areas would have to have exceptionally low temps to bring the average to 2 degrees lower. There is no evidence of this. Local temperature records in the UK and China indicate the 18th century was relatively warm. In the UK 18th century summers were on average warmer than 20th century summers – honest – and there are figures to prove it.

… So while volcanoes certainly may cause a minor drop in global temperature, the claim of Richard Muller and the BEST folks that there are “abrupt dips that match the emissions of known explosive volcanic eruptions” is simply not true. There are abrupt dips, but they don’t match up with the volcanic eruptions.”

If one looks for the nature of the ‘dips’, they can be related to a bunch of solar tide functions from mostly all relevant planets in the solar system.

Yes, and they “can be related” to a host of other things as well … but are they related?

There are well accepted methods and tools used in science, you know well, like to calculate a correlation coefficient of two functions. An other tool is algebra which can used to calculate a significance value, or the difference in the frequencies of the two functions or the grade of the phase coherence of the two functions. Whether functions are related, is in the end not to prove by science; it depends on the very own ability to recognize the truth of a relation.

A recognizable relation as the synodic solar tide function of the couple of Mercury and Earth and the oscillations superimposed on the measured sea level data can be recognized as significant from the given reasons.

To claim that the 2 or all 11 real solar tide functions from real planets in our solar system can be related to a host of other things as well, is meaningless, until you not show a relation with the same correlation values and the same significance. The argument is a fallacy, because it suggests a valid argument, but it is not.

Nobody has ever, to my knowledge, shown that abrupt dips in the earth’s temperature are caused by solar tide functions.

What are ‘abrupt dips’? On what base in climate science one can say this? To my knowledge nobody, except me, has shown (here in WUWT in many comparison graphs) that the global Earth temperature spectra are related to solar tide functions, not only for month or years, but also for two millennia.

Until you have no scientific criteria to discriminate ‘abrupt dips’ in the (reconstructed!) global temperature spectra, its pure speculation, but not science.

The problem is that, given the sun, moon, and a host of planets, there are literally hundreds of possible “solar tide functions”.
As a result, you can find a cycle that fits just about anything … but that doesn’t mean a damn thing.

I have told you above that arguments like this are not valid arguments, because ‘anything’ means nothing. I have done a hard work on fitting the parameter of the relevant oscillators in a magnoto-optic material [ http://www.volker-doormann.org/jap6871990.pdf ]. It can show you that parameter fitting to experimental data of well known real structures in nature like oscillators or tide functions of real (!) solar objects is an accepted method in science. And the matter is based on real physical structures and geometries; not on generated fantasy formulas using cycles or circle functions.

Your result is a fallacy and bad science, because it ignores recognizable true relations in the solar system but gives no theory of your ‘anything’; nobody cannot verify ‘anything’.

The geometric relations between the global sea level and the solar tide function of the solar near bodies are easy to verify or to refute. But that is not performed by fallacious arguments.

Willis Eschenbach says: “The idea that the climate system reacts to a change in forcing by changing things like albedo”

Willis, perhaps you can clarify what you mean by this. Based on things you have said earlier about the differences between the mechanisms you talk about and “feedback” it appears you literally mean that clouds etc. change in direct response to the forcing-rather than in response to temperature change caused by forcing. Put another way, and based on other comments of yours it appears you expect clouds to react to the temperature that “would be eventually” from physics of radaitive imbalance, in proportion so as to eliminate that potential, but never realized, temperature change. Is that about right?

“The idea that the climate system reacts to a change in forcing by changing things like albedo”

Willis, perhaps you can clarify what you mean by this. Based on things you have said earlier about the differences between the mechanisms you talk about and “feedback” it appears you literally mean that clouds etc. change in direct response to the forcing-rather than in response to temperature change caused by forcing. Put another way, and based on other comments of yours it appears you expect clouds to react to the temperature that “would be eventually” from physics of radaitive imbalance, in proportion so as to eliminate that potential, but never realized, temperature change. Is that about right?

An interesting question, Andrew. There are three concepts that are fundamental to understanding the response of the climate to changes. The first of these is the Constructal Law. It was discovered and first articulated by Adrian Bejan at Duke. Basically, it says that natural flow systems that are far from equilibrium (say a meandering rivers, or the climate) must evolve to persist. The system is constantly and perpetually approaching, but never achieving, some optimum form. Typically, this manifests itself as an oscillation around some value. For a meandering river, for example, it is the length of the river. The length of the river is constantly changing, but when it cuts off an oxbow here, it widens a bend there. As a result, the length of the river is constantly fluctuating above and below some fixed value. Note that it is not free do adopt any value … see the US Corps of Engineers versus the Mississippi River for a host of examples. It is important to realize that this is a vastly different basic paradigm from the “change the forcing, change the temperature” of the current climate paradigm.

The second concept that is fundamental to understanding the climate is the idea of self-emergent phenomena. The thunderstorm is the premier example of a self-emergent climate phenomenon. Given the proper conditions, it arises spontaneously wherever the surface is warmer than the surroundings, and cools off the surface in a variety of ways. Most importantly, thunderstorms can cool the surface down to below the initiation temperature. Note that this is different from simple feedback.

Finally, it is crucial to realize that both the climate as a whole, and the thunderstorms within the whole, are natural heat engines. They must be understood and analyzed as such. They follow the thermodynamic rules of natural heat engines.

So to return to your original question … in response to changes in the hourly, daily, monthly, centenary, and longer temperatures, the system changes and evolves in a direction that tends to increase the total sum of the work done by the overall and individual heat engines involved. The work done is the sum of the heat moved through the system plus the turbulence. This is why nature is always running at the edge of turbulence. It’s running as fast as it can given the physical constraints.

Ulric Lyons says: “A number of sources say that the 1884 El Nino was very strong.”

On what basis? Going by average of monthly SOI values, 1884 ranks 40th out 136 years for most negative/least positive. That puts it in the top third, but not what I’d call “very strong” at all. By comparison, the ENSO conditions when El Chicon erupted (1982) and after (1983) rank 5th and 18th, respectively. That’s a strong ENSO event, and a much weaker volcano-the signal would be hard to discern. But it’s also hard to discern with a moderately strong ENSO event and a strong volcano. Because there just isn’t much signal there.

Most importantly, thunderstorms can cool the surface down to below the initiation temperature. Note that this is different from simple feedback.

A very important point, we are dealing with a control system that exhibits hysteresis.

Like the thermostat in a home that is set to turn on the AC at 74 deg F, it comes on at 74, but the AC does not cool the room back to 74 Deg but to a set point some interval below the trigger point. Then the room slowly warms back up over time.

This characteristic alone explains a lot of natural variability if many of the weather process that drive climate have similar behavior. Sometimes multiple processes which tend to cool or heat the atmosphere (climate) will get into sync and all be going in the same direction at the same time. That results in heat waves or cold snaps, droughts or ice ages depending on the net sum of all their actions.

Like a magnetic relay has a characteristic latching time and release time and delays as the coil changes its magnetism as the electrical current and voltage changes, each of the weather processes will have their own characteristic cycle time (sometimes dependent on other similar cycles). As a result there are an infinite number of possible perturbations around the mean.

We have no where near the understanding of the processes involved to even come close to predicting all those interactions. At best we can come to a conclusion about a trend, just as we know in September in the Northern Hemisphere that the weather will tend to cool as the month winds down but that does not prevent an occasional stifling hot day from occurring in September.
Larry

Not really. Although it looks like a “step change” the stratospheric data from satellites is looking at an area where that cooling is dominated by ozone depletion. Note that, due to government regulations, increases in concentrations of some (all?) CFC’s began to decline in about the mid 1990’s (note, I am not commenting on whether this was a wise policy). This coincidences with the halting of lower stratospheric cooling. Modeling the stratospheric temps as a function of stratospheric aerosols and CFCs would account for most of the variability and leave little to be explained by a “step” at all.

Beautiful sunsets were not all that we sensed. I want to throw in a data point to corroborate your observation of the duration of the effect, if not its magnitude. When El Chichon erupted, we were living near Moscow in Russia, and something truly remarkable happened, although we did not know about the eruption when we began observing what we now think were its effects. My father had a Grundig Satellit 3000, a very able radio set, whose FM range was mostly silent because the Russian FM band almost did not everlap the European band, and where they did overlap, the stations were too far away, so all we received was noise. Local broadcasters did not hit the band at all; all we could receive in that range were harmonics from lousy transmitters operating at lower frequencies, so the band was essentially vacant and I used it a lot to monitor my own radio toys. Just to make it clear to those of us who may not be aware: FM radio is strictly a line-of-sight radio. You can’t receive a signal unless you can see the tower it is transmitted from.

Imagine our surprise when we suddenly started hearing a cacophony of multilingual broadcasts, some of which came through loud and clear. They were sporadic at first, but then a pattern emerged. There was nothing to be heard until about 10 a.m., at which time he heard Turkey and sometimes Israel. They were stable for about an hour, then faded away. At about the same time, by tuning around, we could pick up Grece and Balkan countries. Then, later in the day, Italy and Austria, then, by late afternoon, Germany. We could even listen to accident reports and weather briefs from there Autobahn transmitters, which are normally directional, besides being far away. Sometimes we heard voices from further west, but not often, and usually the radio went silent by 6 or 7 p.m. Aside from the shifting pattern that appeared to followed the sun, the signal was loud and clear, and it felt totally surreal.

Thus we entertained ourselves all summer. My father’s theory (which did rather seem like a fact) was that there was a giant hot spot in the ionosphere reflecting the signals our way. The more theoretical conjecture was that the hot spot was caused by the sun (given the temporal pattern we observed). The news of El Chichon, when it finally reached us on one of those radio waves, made my father scream in excitement. He told me it was ash from El Chichon enhancing radio reflectivity on the day side. The effect began fading out by September, but broadcasts were still legible. By the end of October, they fell below the FM threshold, with only sporadic chirps getting through, and in winter the entire band went quiet, as it had always been around those parts.

… Modeling the stratospheric temps as a function of stratospheric aerosols and CFCs would account for most of the variability and leave little to be explained by a “step” at all.

Thanks, timetochooseagain. And you have evidence of this? I must admit that matching some kind of long term trend in the climate to some long term trend in X (CO2, ozone, CFCs, aerosols) is singularly unconvincing. You might be correct, but without some other evidence, correlation is absolutely not causation …

”
Larry Ledwick (hotrod) says:
July 31, 2012 at 3:41 pm
Most importantly, thunderstorms can cool the surface down to below the initiation temperature. Note that this is different from simple feedback.

A very important point, we are dealing with a control system that exhibits hysteresis.

Like the thermostat in a home that is set to turn on the AC at 74 deg F, it comes on at 74, but the AC does not cool the room back to 74 Deg but to a set point some interval below the trigger point. Then the room slowly warms back up over time
”
***************
I would suggest it is more of a PID with continual adjustment of control outputs based upon T such that there is a fairly small delta T from the actual setpoint in order to provide the proper amount of control output. In other words I think it’s an analog world, not a digital one on the macro scale.

Willis,
Have you ever tried to put in very large nuclear atmospheric tests or clusters of tests in the graph? After all, it seems that a number of these nutjobs from the CAGW ranks were first trying to tell us that as few as one open air nuke test was enough to push the world into a new ice age.

What a neat story. And maybe another way to monitor global ash clouds. I dealt with radios and transmitters some in my past pre-retirement life. There are some interesting things that go on in the ionosphere due to a number of natural events but this is the first time I’ve heard of this. I will talk with some of my engineering friends about it. Thanks.

Sudden changes in the atmosphere’s vertical moisture content and temperature profiles can on random occasions make microwave and UHF & VHF signals propagate hundreds of kilometers up to about 2,000 kilometers (1,300 mi)—and for ducting mode even farther—beyond the normal radio-horizon. The inversion layer is mostly observed over high pressure regions, but there are several tropospheric weather conditions which create these randomly occurring propagation modes.

A volcanic eruption would be a perfectly logical explanation for a sudden change in vertical moisture content to create the ducting layer.

I used to work in the Colorado State EOC as assistant communications officer and one of our frequencies was in the VHF-Low Band: 25 MHz to 50 MHz near the 45-49 mhz (I don’t recall the actual frequency any more) and in the early morning would get very strong skip (in Colorado) of communications traffic on the same frequency from the New Jersey Turnpike.

Willis,
Have you ever tried to put in very large nuclear atmospheric tests or clusters of tests in the graph? After all, it seems that a number of these nutjobs from the CAGW ranks were first trying to tell us that as few as one open air nuke test was enough to push the world into a new ice age.

Actually, been there, blogged that … they made no detectable climate signal.

Willis,
I can believe that a single test wouldn’t be detectable but wasn’t there a whole batch of them over a relatively short time and wouldn’t that possible give a really spread out low intensity signal – unlike a volcanic erruption?
If not, sounds like the nuclear winter whackjobs may be out yet another catastrophe to obsess over.
Perhaps one should take the data set of CAGW whackjobs and test it for correlation with the nuclear winter whackjob data set and extract out the pure lunatics from the dataset. ;)

Willis,
I can believe that a single test wouldn’t be detectable but wasn’t there a whole batch of them over a relatively short time and wouldn’t that possible give a really spread out low intensity signal – unlike a volcanic erruption?
If not, sounds like the nuclear winter whackjobs may be out yet another catastrophe to obsess over.
Perhaps one should take the data set of CAGW whackjobs and test it for correlation with the nuclear winter whackjob data set and extract out the pure lunatics from the dataset. ;)

cba, I discussed and graphed all the tests at that link … at least I think I did, hang on … yeah, I did, I showed all of the tests.

phlogiston says:
July 30, 2012 at 5:06 am
Maybe the cooling CAUSES the volcanos – i.e. making the earth’s mantle more brittle or something?
/sarc off

Eruption frequencies are linked with lower solar activity in longer term geological time scale studies. There has been a large number of powerful earthquakes and eruptions since the Sun went quiet in 2005.

tallbloke says:
August 2, 2012 at 4:08 pm
Eruption frequencies are linked with lower solar activity in longer term geological time scale studies. There has been a large number of powerful earthquakes and eruptions since the Sun went quiet in 2005.

There is evidence after Hung (NASA) that special heliocentric aspects of the planets are in relation with big solar flares: http://www.volker-doormann.org/ghi_solar_s.pdf
It can also be shown that these aspects as geocentric aspects are related to earthquakes:

I do not think that statistic helps to understand the mechanism. BTW. What is ‘solar activity’ in physics? As long as people ignore the sun and its ‘music’ from the planets the mechanism of the solar system and its energy pattern, it’s an arrogant geocentric view of climate. There were no astronomers in the hearing of the government days ago.

Dr. Roy Spencer has given the UAH global temperatures for July 2012. The solar tide functions of 11 planets can be calculated from 3000 BC until 3000 CE with a resolution of better than days. The comparison for the last 3 years shows that there is a relation.

Indeed it seems to me that there are time intervals which match not with the tide function simulation, but I think further work on subtracting can give new insights in both the effect of vulcanos and the effect from the sun.

… Eruption frequencies are linked with lower solar activity in longer term geological time scale studies. There has been a large number of powerful earthquakes and eruptions since the Sun went quiet in 2005.

Volker Doormann says:
August 2, 2012 at 11:39 pm

… As long as people ignore the sun and its ‘music’ from the planets the mechanism of the solar system and its energy pattern, it’s an arrogant geocentric view of climate.

Yes, and as long as people ignore the subject of a thread and instead want to discuss their favorite theories of the solar system and its energy pattern, it’s an arrogant heliocentric view of their own planetary sized egos …

Volker, how about you take your brilliant ideas over to tallbloke’s website? He welcomes all folks over there, gravity-heads and cyclo-maniacs, pressure-freaks and solar tidal surfers, people saying they’ve discovered perpetual motion, anyone at all, no theory is too outré for the talkshop.

Because that way, you two can assure each other that the planets rule the earthquakes, and congratulate each other on how smart you are, without bothering people who are talking about the effects of volcanoes on the climate … you know, the subject of the thread.

Willis Eschenbach says:Volker Doormann says:
August 2, 2012 at 11:39 pm
… As long as people ignore the sun and its ‘music’ from the planets the mechanism of the solar system and its energy pattern, it’s an arrogant geocentric view of climate.

Yes, and as long as people ignore the subject of a thread and instead want to discuss their favorite theories of the solar system and its energy pattern, it’s an arrogant heliocentric view of their own planetary sized egos …
Volker, how about you take your brilliant ideas over to tallbloke’s website? …without bothering people who are talking about the effects of volcanoes on the climate … you know, the subject of the thread.

The simple point is that Willis Eschenbach never come to hand to any of my given arguments on the subject obove, but discredit my unique work with ‘all folks over there, gravity-heads and cyclo-maniacs, pressure-freaks and solar tidal surfers, people saying they’ve discovered perpetual motion, anyone at all’.

Willis Eschenbach says:
August 3, 2012 at 12:30 am
Volker, how about you take your brilliant ideas over to tallbloke’s website? He welcomes all folks over there, gravity-heads and cyclo-maniacs, pressure-freaks and solar tidal surfers, people saying they’ve discovered perpetual motion, anyone at all, no theory is too outré for the talkshop. Because that way, you two can assure each other that the planets rule the earthquakes, and congratulate each other on how smart you are, without bothering people who are talking about the effects of volcanoes on the climate … you know, the subject of the thread.

[Reply]
Because my first posted reply to this proposal is deleted without a comment reply of a moderator as usual, it shows me that some one of this WUWT blog likes it to use ad hominem arguments and like it deleting valid scientific arguments.
Bad science.

V.

[REPLY: Your first comment was caught in the spam folder. Please do not assume nefarious persecutory motives when the answer is simply a loack of moderation coverage for the time window in question. -REP]

[REPLY: Your first comment was caught in the spam folder. Please do not assume nefarious persecutory motives when the answer is simply a loack of moderation coverage for the time window in question. -REP]

Ulric Lyons says:
August 3, 2012 at 3:46 am
Volker Doormann says:
August 2, 2012 at 11:39 pm
“..I think further work on subtracting can give new insights in both the effect of vulcanos and the effect from the sun.”

I have no doubt that temperature deviations are driving the events, and are of a solar origin …

Hi, in this thread my contributions are qualified by the thread creator as bother.
I do respect that.

Volker Doormann says:
August 2, 2012 at 11:39 pm… As long as people ignore the sun and its ‘music’ from the planets the mechanism of the solar system and its energy pattern, it’s an arrogant geocentric view of climate.

Yes, and as long as people ignore the subject of a thread and instead want to discuss their favorite theories of the solar system and its energy pattern, it’s an arrogant heliocentric view of their own planetary sized egos …
Volker, how about you take your brilliant ideas over to tallbloke’s website? …without bothering people who are talking about the effects of volcanoes on the climate … you know, the subject of the thread.

The simple point is that Willis Eschenbach never come to hand to any of my given arguments on the subject obove, but discredit my unique work with ‘all folks over there, gravity-heads and cyclo-maniacs, pressure-freaks and solar tidal surfers, people saying they’ve discovered perpetual motion, anyone at all’.

Volker, you are 100% right. I have “never come to hand to any of [your] given arguments”, nor do I have the slightest intention to come to hand with them.

So please, as I requested earlier, TAKE YOUR ARGUMENTS ELSEWHERE. This is not the thread for your “unique work”, this is a thread about something entirely different.

Really? That’s your evidence? You truly think that the ecliptical length (angle) between Mars and Pluto is relevant to the eruption of Krakatoa? Really?

I gotta tell you, Volker, it’s that kind of thing that makes me classify you among the cyclo-maniacs. You may be right, but I can’t make heads or tails of that. IF you think that you can tell the time of an upcoming volcanic eruption using your method, please let me know. Until then, your arcane astrological calculations involving “M.C./Mars” and “ASC/Saturn” and the like are of absolutely no interest to me.

Oh, and by the way:

Krakatoa was dormant until May 20, 1883, when it erupted catastrophically. By August 11, three vents were regularly erupting on the volcano. During this time tides were unusually high, and phenonema such as windows suddenly shattering were commonplace. Ships at anchor were sometimes tied down with chains as a result.

The August 27 eruptions occurred at 5:30 am, 6:42 am, 8:20 am and 10:02 am local time. The last of these eruptions opened fissures in the walls of the volcano, allowing sea water to pour into the magma chamber. The resulting explosion of superheated steam destroyed most of the island.

So your lovely, precise timing, of 10:02 in the morning of August 27th, was just one of many Krakatoa eruptions stretching from May 1883 to August 1883, and only one of four eruptions on August 27th … so did astrology predict the exact timing of the other dozens of Krakatoa eruptions as well?

In any case, if your hot-rod, you-beaut method is accurate to the minute as you seem to think, please come back when you have a forecast to the minute (or to the hour, or even to the day) of an upcoming volcanic eruption. Not a hindcast like you’ve done above, but an actual forecast. Then and only then can we see if your method has any value.

But until you have such a forecast, please leave your cyclo-mania off of my threads. You are more than welcome to post on my threads, but while I am interested in your comments on other topics, I’m not interested in your astrological calculations in the slightest. Please take them somewhere that people will appreciate them, because I’m sorry, but I think they’re a joke.

I was worried by Volker’s list of aspects. That they are simple fractions of 360 degrees doesn’t work for me. At full (180) or new (360) moon there are major tidal stresses on the earth, but at any other aspect, forces cancel out. Wouldn’t that be the same only more so for muliple out-of-phase planetary effects?

“So what we really might have is a possible relation with falling temps causing large volcanic eruptions…. /sarc”

No need for the sarc. Most large events occur after very cold seasons, and usually on a warm burst.

Oh, please. Your claim is that large volcanic eruptions “occur after very cold seasons, and usually on a warm burst”???

Since you have not provided a) a definition of a “very cold season”, or b) a definition of a “warm burst”, or c) a definition of a “large” eruption, or d) the slightest scrap of evidence that your claim might be true, I’m just going to point and laugh. You and Volker need to have a “dueling theories” session, you say it’s warm weather, he says it’s the angle between Mars and Pluto …

Me, I say if people could forecast volcanic eruptions by such means, they’d be rich and famous. As it stands, scientists may be able to give us a few weeks or days warning from a network of sensors on a given volcano, but Mars, Pluto, and warm weather don’t feature too strongly in their calculations …

Willis Eschenbach says:
August 3, 2012 at 10:10 am
Volker Doormann says:
August 3, 2012 at 2:13 am
Willis Eschenbach says:
The simple point is that Willis Eschenbach never come to hand to any of my given arguments on the subject above, but discredit my unique work with ‘all folks over there, gravity-heads and cyclo-maniacs, pressure-freaks and solar tidal surfers, people saying they’ve discovered perpetual motion, anyone at all’.

Volker, you are right. I have “never come to hand to any of [your] given arguments, nor do I have any intention to come to hand with them.

It is not relevant in science what ones personal intension is. Relevant in science are given arguments.

>> <b<Argumentum ad ignorantiam means “argument from ignorance.” The fallacy occurs when it’s argued that something must be true, simply because it hasn’t been proved false. Or, equivalently, when it is argued that something must be false because it hasn’t been proved true. <> “ Argumentum ad hominem literally means “argument directed at the man”
If you refuse to accept a statement, and justify your refusal by criticizing the person who made the statement, then you are guilty of abusive argumentum ad hominem. A less blatant argumentum ad hominem is to reject a proposition based on the fact that it was also asserted by some other easily criticized person. For example: “Therefore we should close down the church? Hitler and Stalin would have agreed with you.” <> “ Argumentum ad populum . This is known as Appealing to the Gallery, or Appealing to the People. You commit this fallacy if you attempt to win acceptance of an assertion by appealing to a large group of people. This form of fallacy is often characterized by emotive language. “ <<

What are cyclo-maniacs in science? Is it a well accepted object in physical science?

IF you think that you can tell the time of an upcoming volcanic eruption using your method, please let me know. Until then, your arcane astrological calculations involving “M.C./Mars” and “ASC/Saturn” and the like are of absolutely no interest to me.

Science is the idea to find the truth in nature. Science is not the game of self declared kings to play an inquisitor to presumed deceiver in the public.

Astronomy is the science of the law of the planetary motions discovered by I. Kepler. The ephemeris of the motions of the planets are refined by the NASA and out of this I have calculated the ecliptic longitudes for all my graphs.

.. please come back when you have a forecast to the minute (or to the hour, or even to the day) of an upcoming volcanic eruption. Not a hindcast like you’ve done above, but an actual forecast. Then and only then can we see if your method has any value.

Because there is no general difference visible about the nature of big solar flares
(see J. H. Nelsons work at RCA: http://www.volker-doormann.org/nelson1.htm) , big Volcano eruptions or mayor earthquakes this may be an example:

“A major earthquake occurred at 06:10:49 (UTC) on Monday, January 2, 2006. The magnitude 7.4 event has been located EAST OF THE SOUTH SANDWICH ISLANDS. (This event has been reviewed by a seismologist.) Location: 60.807°S, 21.474°W ”

That was forecast a half a year prior to the mayor quake and the accuracy in time was less an hour.

Willis Eschenbach says:
August 3, 2012 at 10:24 am
“Since you have not provided a) a definition of a “very cold season”, or b) a definition of a “warm burst”, or c) a definition of a “large” eruption, or d) the slightest scrap of evidence that your claim might be true, I’m just going to point and laugh”

a) typically the cold N.H. winters that directly precede almost all the eruptions that you have picked.
b) is where many regions have simultaneous have above or well above normal land temperature
for a week or more, due to periods of faster solar wind.
c) VEI 4 and above: http://www.volcano.si.edu/world/largeeruptions.cfm
d) if you had read my links you would have found some detailed descriptions, such as:https://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/04/17/volcanoes-cause-climate-change/#comment-370886
which includes a correct forecast for no major Katla eruption in June 2010, as well as comments
about cold N.H. winters preceding large events, which can be easily verified. So your uncivil
behaviour is misplaced.

Man, it seems you can’t get astrologers like Volker and Ulric to shut up. The more you ask them to go away, the more nonsense they babble. Is it an occupational thing? Is the Jupiter-Lunar ecliptical length making them looney?

Now Ulric is taking credit for forecasting that there would be no eruption from a certain volcano in June 2010, and claiming that cold winters in New Hampshire presage eruptions. And Volker is telling us that there is no general difference visible about the nature of big solar flares, big Volcano eruptions or mayor earthquakes. No general difference between the nature of solar flares, eruptions and earthquakes? Keep it up, boys, I haven’t laughed this hard in a while, you guys are precious.

I was worried by Volker’s list of aspects. That they are simple fractions of 360 degrees doesn’t work for me. At full (180) or new (360) moon there are major tidal stresses on the earth, but at any other aspect, forces cancel out. Wouldn’t that be the same only more so for muliple out-of-phase planetary effects?

Thanks, logicophilosophicus. You clearly don’t understand the mental processes of cyclo-maniacs. For them, any correlation between phenomena, no matter how tenuous, tortured, or slight, confirms their theories. Doesn’t matter if there is an actual physical effect such as you have discussed, they are just looking for something, anything upon which they can hang a baseless theory.

Willis Eschenbach says:
August 3, 2012 at 3:21 pm
“Now Ulric is taking credit for forecasting that there would be no eruption from a certain volcano in June 2010, and claiming that cold winters in New Hampshire presage eruptions.”

Don’t ignore the correct forecast I made for Autumn 2010 for an Indonesian eruption. And N.H. is the Northern Hemisphere not New Hampshire. Sorry to spoil your precious fun again Willis but you need to do your homework properly before firing off.

Willis Eschenbach says:
August 3, 2012 at 3:25 pm
“For them, any correlation between phenomena, no matter how tenuous, tortured, or slight, confirms their theories.”

The only correlation with large eruptions that I have mentioned here is surface temperature changes, which is actually in agreement with your graph showing cooling starting before the eruptions. You need though to look at least monthly temperatures rather than your annual smoothed red line to examine the occurrence of much colder periods in seasons preceding the eruptions, and the following warmer episodes where the eruptions take place.

logicophilosophicus says:
August 3, 2012 at 2:23 pm
I was worried by Volker’s list of aspects. That they are simple fractions of 360 degrees doesn’t work for me. At full (180) or new (360) moon there are major tidal stresses on the earth, but at any other aspect, forces cancel out. Wouldn’t that be the same only more so for multiple out-of-phase planetary effects?

Logicphilosophicus,
this thread deals with the possible connection of volcano outbreaks and global temperature anomalies. I have argued here above that as long as the cause of the structure of the global temperature anomalies is not known, optical ‘dips’ in curves cannot in general be separated as volcano effects. But it would be possible, if the natural global temperature function, free from human activities and volcano effects is known.
Willis has more than one time declared that he is not interested in that matter that is based on solar tide functions, in general, and in all his threads, I do accept that.
But because Willies has explicit asked questions in this his thread to that matter, I have given my answers to him.
It is out of the topic in this thread to discuss the astronomical background of the heliocentric functions which are well correlated with the measured or reconstructed global temperature data. And because of this I have given only a comparison graph to show the quality of the method for a time window of about 3 years.
The graph shows an example of an unknown higher temperature level, 2 years ago, for which I have no astronomic function found, that could fit the global temperature.
Regarding the worry you have, it was an example of astronomic configurations, which are some different to the solar tide functions, which are related to the global temperature. A statistical analysis of the astronomic geocentric aspect configurations while earthquakes and big volcano outbreaks show in the geocentric configuration a large number of integer division parts of the ecliptic circle as shown. From this recognition I could make successful a prediction of an earthquake on 2006, January 2nd with a precision in time of 35 minutes, a half year before the quake. I have no idea what the mechanism is. However, if you calculate an index in 5 minute increments for 2 different mayor quakes for a month the index is maximized in the 5 minute window while the earthquakes happened.
Again, this is off topic here and is only given to show the geometries background and the effects. I do write here on WUWT, if my discovery of the relation between the solar tide functions and the cause of natural global temperature function is discussed or could be relevant.